Head light mod request for 1200 GS

Hi guys, inventors and inovators. I need your skills and experiance please.

I'm absolutley fed-up (to put it politley ) with the headlight on my 1200 GS.

Has anyone modifed, found or replaced this kin usless item with one that points where you are going?

If I want a better view of the trees while I'm riding at night, I just have to switch to hi beem and there they are, bright as day, great. But I want to see the road not the blessed trees

I know the easy route is to fit spot/driving lights and never bother using hi beem again, but thats not my point. I want to see where I'm going and then maybe add to that with spot/driving lights to make what should be a usable light even better.

Has anyone tried to alter the direction of the hi beem indipendently of the low beem, by maybe pulling the thing apart and cutting the two sections and realighining them? Or even putting some sort of beem angle deflection thing over the hi beem 'a bit like you do with the car head lights when you go to france?

Just incase your wondering, yes I have had the alignment checked and aparently it as it shoud be.

I know that somthing like this has been done with the 1150, but has it been tried with the 1200?
Or could a more conventional head light be fitted in stead? and would this cause an issue with the can-bus wireing system (not that I have any idea what the can-bus stuff is all about. making me unwilling to try anything with out running it by some of you guys in the know)

Sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant, but it suprises me that BMW have decided to use this light accross the range including on the K1200r 165 horse power thing Are they trying to actively discourage positive progerss at night? or are they hoping for a boost in accident damage repairs, due to riders missing the corners because they can't see at night unless they are going round a lefthander with their toe scraping the deck.

If any one has ideas I'd be keen to know. Thanks for listening, I feel a little better now. Val.

You don't want to add additional spots (which is the solution I have on my 1150).

http://www.touratech.de/shop_uk/enter.html Select BMW, Lighting

Additional lights can be added to the canbus system using relays.

Jhenshall said:

You don't want to add additional spots (which is the solution I have on my 1150).

http://www.touratech.de/shop_uk/enter.html Select BMW, Lighting

Additional lights can be added to the canbus system using relays.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean Henshall, but I don't realy want to add extra lights to cover up a bad job from another.

I have looked at other lights and I'm not convinced they are the way I want to go. I would like to either modify the internals of the existing headlight or replace it with a better one.

All I want is to be able to see where I'm going on low beem and then see better with high beem.
The standard headlight has a reletively good low beem, then when high beem is turned on you get a dissapointing amount of extra light on the road ahead.

I reccon about 80% of the light from high beem is directed up into the trees to the left. This can only be used when the bike is tipped tight into a left hand bend that was unsafe to enter at the speed necassery to get the bike over, because you can't see enough with the light you have available before you tip the bike into the bend.

Why are lights no longer as good as they were only seven or eight years ago?
The GSXR1100, the early R1 and many others besids.

The standard lights are reasonable--it sounds like your alignment is out.

I wanted to improve mine and fitting PIAA bulbs from Nippy Norman (now £40 each) in dip and main beam, plus twin aux lights. The latter were fitted for presence as much as anything.

Tim

Just a thought.

Did a search and can't find a HID unit for the 12 (11 + 1150 units available). I suppose that a HID will come on the market for the 12 at some time.

The PIA bulbs are good, but expensive!

I agree with Tim Cullis. The PIAA bulbs do make a huge difference.

Andy

Still sounds like allignment to me, bulbs help, but are no good if all the light is in the trees

Its very easy to fit the bulbs crooked so check that.

Properly adjusted, the lights are OK, not brilliant, but OK, fine for normal dry nights, my only issue is when it rains, the lights then are bordering on poor, and I found the Wundrerlich micro flooters very effective at filling in the dip beam during poor weather.

After fitting the 40-50% brighter bulbs in the past I found them alot less reliable than standard bulbs, so returned them to standard and dropped my speed by 5-10mph

No problems at all on my new 1200GSA the lights seem well adjusted from new

Shep

I'm sure I read somewhere on here about a Dutch bloke? who was using a HID dipped light unit on his 12.

As for the PIAA's, personally I think they do make a difference allowing you to be seen easier. But they don't make the headlamp any better, it's the crap reflector!

Several peeps have fitted HIDs to the 12 - can't remember who now but I'm sure a seach will reveal all

Must agree with Dirtydog though, the reflector is crap - a brighter bulb will help but only to a limited extent.

I run '50% brighter' bulbs and, whilst they help, my experiance at the weekend of riding down a reasonably main road in France and beeing limited to 60mph beacause I could not see far enough ahead to go any quicker safely was most frustrating. Main beam was only of any use whatsover when riding through a canopy of trees

It id defo. NOT bad alingment, believe me I have played around with this adnauseum. It is impossible to get both the high beam and dipped beam set up together, one or the other, yes, but both of them, no.

Andres

Outtomunch said:

Several peeps have fitted HIDs to the 12 - can't remember who now but I'm sure a seach will reveal all

Must agree with Dirtydog though, the reflector is crap - a brighter bulb will help but only to a limited extent.

I run '50% brighter' bulbs and, whilst they help, my experiance at the weekend of riding down a reasonably main road in France and beeing limited to 60mph beacause I could not see far enough ahead to go any quicker safely was most frustrating. Main beam was only of any use whatsover when riding through a canopy of trees

It id defo. NOT bad alingment, believe me I have played around with this adnauseum. It is impossible to get both the high beam and dipped beam set up together, one or the other, yes, but both of them, no.

Andres

Click to expand...

Hi Andres, you hit the nail on the head. Low and high beem just don't match.

I have one of thoughs blue phillips bulbs in the low beem, and haven't noticed any difference.

I have considered turning the unit upside down, but even if it will go it'll probably just give a bright patch low and to the right.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, much appriceated.



Does any one know if the headlight can be dissasembled, i.e. opened up and the reflector removed?

Just in the process of fitting HID to the low beam and PIAA to the high, sorted a point for the ballast box just got to make the bracket.
Had one fitted on my 1150 and very impressive, so should be bright on the 1200.
Will post pictures.

Hid Fitting

Hi Val h

I have previously fitted hid lighting to the main and dipped beam of my 1200gs.
Try to click on the link below it should (if ive done it right) take you to my post

Hid link

The install went pretty good considering i have NO electrical knowlage !!!

Any questions just ask

Regards


John

A quick visit to Hids4u here shows that they now do a 12gs kit.

And some of the pictures look suspiciously similar to the ones in John's original thread - nice one, it looks like your pioneering work and persistence paid off for the rest of us.

Fame at last

Kin Ell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fame at last (wish i had cleaned the garrage)
As i said in my link i had no electrical knowlage at all.
The guys at hids4u bent over backwards in providing, what i believe, was the first kit for a 1200gs ! even including a wiring diagram that even i could understand !
I gave permission for them to use my photos as a thank you for there help and frequent advice

John

My first day on the site and I find what I've been looking for, for over a year of 1200GS ownership . HID BULBS THAT WORK, yipeee

Will now be a regular here.

StuWG said:

My first day on the site and I find what I've been looking for, for over a year of 1200GS ownership . HID BULBS THAT WORK, yipeee

Will now be a regular here.

Click to expand...

Well done Welcome along.




Thanks guys for all your help and suggestions.

If any one has anything ells to add to this problem please, lets hear it.


Cheers Val.

Just done a dry run with a HID fitted to the 1200, used a H1 bulb kit and connected it up, no problem with the bulb warning and mine has ABS, did not activate the ABS, so hope this does not cause a problem later.

Val..just a thought having dealt with the woeful lights on my 1150Adv....

Alignment does seem most likely, but if it's not that, bulbs won't help that much.

A higher wattage is nice, but you pay for it in longevity....I had some 1oow bulbs in mine a while ago but they blew every month or two, no less frequently....

Beyond the bulb wattage, the problem you then have (assuming alignment is ok) is the reflector design....and nothing short of fitting aux lights or a replacement reflector is going to solve that.

HID bulbs may mask the problem by overpowering the reflector's inadequacies, but seriously, the best way of getting usable light that you have control over is to fit aux lights.

Have a search for 'nadeem' and 'lights'.....he has some nice kit on his 1200.

The best bit of aux lights is that you can direct the beams as you really need.....nearside low for grass verged corners, or offside/nearside higher for long distance vision...you can decide.

I'd suggest that you don't try and overpower the system with brighter bulbs......optimise the alignment then look to aux lights for a better solution.

Fanum said:

Val..just a thought having dealt with the woeful lights on my 1150Adv....

Alignment does seem most likely, but if it's not that, bulbs won't help that much.

A higher wattage is nice, but you pay for it in longevity....I had some 1oow bulbs in mine a while ago but they blew every month or two, no less frequently....

Beyond the bulb wattage, the problem you then have (assuming alignment is ok) is the reflector design....and nothing short of fitting aux lights or a replacement reflector is going to solve that.

HID bulbs may mask the problem by overpowering the reflector's inadequacies, but seriously, the best way of getting usable light that you have control over is to fit aux lights.

Have a search for 'nadeem' and 'lights'.....he has some nice kit on his 1200.

The best bit of aux lights is that you can direct the beams as you really need.....nearside low for grass verged corners, or offside/nearside higher for long distance vision...you can decide.

I'd suggest that you don't try and overpower the system with brighter bulbs......optimise the alignment then look to aux lights for a better solution.

Click to expand...

Fanum, you have a good point.
But as I mentiond earlier, I want the hi AND low beem to point where they are supposed too. As you say the hidd system 'though very good' dose not change the direction of the high beem, it simply adds more light in the wrong direction with an over spill of light that makes the inadequet reflector considerably better.

As has beem prooven by all you guys who have chosen to go down this route. But I'm not content to go this way, I want propper lights that I can make better. Not bad ones I can only improve on.

In my oppinion the problem lies with the reflector 'not' the bulbs, and therefore fitting brighter lights is ineffectual (the light though now brigher, still points in the wrong direction) this is not what I'm looking for.

I believe that if the reflectors were adjustable seperately the lights would in fact be pritey good.

As for adding extra lights I have no objection to this, except that I would want to 'add' to good lights, not 'compensate' for bad ones.

Now, can anyone answer one of my original questions,
Is it possible to remove the reflector from the headlight without destroying the whole unit?
If it is I'll be tempted to take a saw to the reflector in order to realigne the high beem.

Thanks for your input guys, if any of you have any other thoughts or oppinions, I'd be interested to know them. Cheers Val.